John Braun commentary: Clarity on climate policy cost comes too late for our state
Monday, November 17, 2025
I have spoken many times about the importance of giving people a second chance to get on a better path. It usually comes up when the topic is our state’s management of juvenile offenders. I never had a reason to consider whether that should also extend to billionaires.
Then in late October, Bill Gates — the Seattle-area resident and Microsoft co-founder who is still among the wealthiest people in the world — let it be known that he had changed his views on climate policy.
His revelation was self-published under the title of “Three tough truths about climate.” It was aimed at those attending this year’s annual United Nations-sponsored climate change conference, which began Nov. 10 in Brazil.
Gates’ memo opens by describing what he calls a “doomsday view of climate change.” It basically predicts civilization will be destroyed because global temperatures are rising due to increased carbon emissions. Then he immediately declares that view to be wrong.
Critics quickly pounced. An example was the headline “Respectfully, Bill Gates Should Shut Up.”
My reaction is almost the opposite: Why didn’t Bill Gates speak up sooner?
Early in 2024, he wrote a $1 million check to the campaign to oppose Initiative 2117, which would have repealed Washington’s most controversial climate policy — the 2021 cap-and-tax law called the Climate Commitment Act (CCA).
That campaign was based on the doomsday view Gates now discredits. Repealing the CCA would endanger our health and safety, we were told. Even roads would be more dangerous and congested.
The state voters’ guide carried the sensational claim that ending the cap-and-tax law would cause “devastating harm.”
The truth is that families across our state were being devastated by financial harm as soon as the CCA took full effect in 2023. The pain showed up first at the fuel pump, then in higher bills for natural-gas customers, including public schools. That harm has escalated since, and there is even a debate taking place on whether natural gas should be banned altogether.
With Gates’ help, somewhere north of $44 million was spent flooding the airwaves and cyberspace with attacks against I-2117 and the other pro-affordability measures made possible by more than 800,000 voter signatures that year.
An opposition megaphone that large couldn’t be overcome. The defeat of I-2117 is the largest single reason that a gallon of regular costs well over $4 on average in Washington versus $2.55 in Oklahoma. It is about 40 cents more than Oregon and 90 cents more than Idaho, neither of which has a carbon tax.
Against that backdrop, here are the “tough truths” Gates is now promoting.
First, he says, climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization. Next, temperature is not the best way to measure our progress on climate. And third, health and prosperity are the best defense against climate change.
Then Gates wrote this: “Although climate change will hurt poor people more than anyone else, for the vast majority of them it will not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and welfare.”
That’s quite the shift for someone who just this past year threw a million dollars toward protecting a law which declares climate change is an “existential crisis.”
Gates’ post only hints at reasons for his change in course, so the question remains: Why did he wait until now to speak up?
Billionaires have the luxury of believing policies like the CCA should be imposed on people across Washington. They can afford the financial consequences, while most average citizens suffer.
For that reason, they also can afford to declare it’s “not too late to adopt a different view,” to use Gates’ words, without recognizing the harm done to others by their original luxury belief.
We can only wonder whether things might have turned out differently for I-2117 if Gates had spoken up Oct. 27, 2024 — when Washington voters still had nine days to get their general-election ballots in — instead of a full year later.
As of September, the cap-and-tax law is credited with adding a total of 51 cents to the cost of a gallon of gas and 61 cents for a gallon of diesel.
Our calculations also have the CCA grabbing $4 billion from drivers’ pockets since it took effect. Meanwhile, the law has made no measurable reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions.
No one should deny Gates or any other Washingtonian a second chance to get on a better path. I appreciate that he appears to have joined with those of us who have had more clarity about the climate question for many years. However, it’s coming too late to help the families who will continue to pay a steep price for a wrong-headed climate policy he helped to protect.
Gates closes by calling on the climate community to pivot and “prioritize the things that have the greatest impact on human welfare.” Senate Republicans are already doing that — which is why our priorities are affordability, public safety and improving the lives of our children. It’s how our state does better.
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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.